Addressing Concerns About the Fire Suppression Assessment Tax

Following our five-year financial plan, we have taken over $1.6 million in reductions from our police and fire labor contracts. In total the plan asks for $8 million in employee compensation reductions over five years.

As you probably know, our city’s property owners approved a fire assessment in 2004, which expired in 2009.  The methods used to instate the previous fire assessment are exactly the same as those for this new, proposed assessment, with one exception: The State of California now requires agricultural/vacant land to be included. With our hillsides, this land is often where the most difficult and expensive fires to control actually occur. Even when Cal Fire is called in for water drops or other aid, if the fire is not decreed a disaster, the City of Pacifica and its citizens must pay these costs. Our city is considering this assessment in order to continue to provide efficient responses to fires within our city’s boundaries with a dedicated source of revenue. 

Since the state has become an unreliable partner in helping to fund public services that local jurisdictions provide for their citizens, the City of Pacifica organized the Financing City Services Task Force to review the city budget and come up with a long-term plan for a sustainable budget (To view the plan, visit the city website’s homepage at http://www.cityofpacifica.org/ and click the link on the right hand side to download the Task Force’s final report).

The Task Force determined that since the city used to have a dedicated source of funding for fire suppression, this would be a natural piece of the long-term budget solution for the city. I agree that property owners’ should have the opportunity to vote whether or not to reinstate the fire suppression assessment to provide this vital source of funding to protect lives and property. 

By having a dedicated source of revenue, which includes citizen oversight and annual audits to ensure all funds are used only for fire suppression and protection within city boundaries, the city can continue to provide efficient and quick fire response at a time when our budget is under strain.

Many of the answers to questions about how votes are counted can be found on our city website’s homepage by clicking on the link for the engineer’s report for the fire assessment. This explains how votes are counted and weighted.  California State Law specifies the methods of weighting and calculating the amount of the assessment and share of service cost to each property. Because the assessment provides a special benefit/service to property owners, the state statute allows for property owners to participate in the balloting process. Votes are weighted based on the benefit the property owner receives and the amount of effort for fire protection as noted in table 6 on page 9 of the engineer’s report. As noted on your ballot notice, each $1 of assessment = 1 vote and a simple majority of those votes is required to pass the assessment. Many believe this is a more equitable method of voting. However, just like in other elections, a non-vote is not counted towards the final outcome of the assessment vote.

One major point of clarification—the rates noted in your balloting packet are the maximum rates the city can levy in any given year. This is the cap. The city may levy a lesser amount in any year, but the maximum cannot exceed the rate noted in your ballot notice.

Finally, the city council has been discussing the fire assessment for some time and has had several meetings on the topic, which have been posted in our public city council agendas. The public is of course always invited to attend our meetings and ask questions or provide public comment.

The special workshop on the assessment is one additional method for property owners to receive information and ask questions specifically about the assessment before submitting their ballot in time for the public hearing on April 11, 2011.  I hope you will join me and attend the workshop tomorrow evening, March 9 at 7:00pm at the city council chamber located at 2212 Beach Boulevard.